Update at 5:52 p.m.: The Urban League of Greater Dallas has suspended three “navigators in training” who were featured in the undercover video by a conservative activist. The group also has fired a fourth person, who it says was training to be a part-time receptionist. She appears eight seconds into the video. “You lie because your premiums will be higher,” she says, apparently referring to tobacco use. “I always lie on mine.”

In a statement, the Urban League of Greater Dallas said it has “taken immediate steps” in response to release of the James O’Keefe video but also is investigating “the full context of what occurred.” It says it’s seeking a copy of unedited footage taken during the undercover visits to its offices in Oak Cliff and Irving.

The group also said it had not finished training the three navigators and that their status as trainees “was conveyed to the undercover applicant.”

It says, without elaborating, that “corrective comments were made” to him.

“Unfortunately the full context of these comments is not reflected in the video,” it says. The Urban League said it takes its duty as a training organization seriously. It concluded on a note of defiance:

“We will not sit idly or silently as agenda-driven individuals operating under false pretenses attempt to undermine our efforts to serve those who need it most.”

Update at 4:38 p.m.: The spelling of O’Keefe spokeswoman’s last name has been corrected.

Update at 3:16 p.m.: Attorney General Greg Abbott says he feels vindicated by the O’Keefe video.

Abbott, who is running for governor and has criticized the Obama administration for not requiring more background checks and privacy-law training of navigators, said through a spokesman Tuesday afternoon that he knew something like this would happen.

“Just as Attorney General Abbott predicted in letters to the federal [health and human services] secretary and Texas insurance commissioner, the Obamacare navigator program is ripe for abuse,” said spokesman Jerry Strickland. “Any program that suggests Americans lie to game the system is a program that is out of control, and out of touch with what taxpayers want and deserve.”

Original item at 1:18 p.m.: A conservative activist has secretly videotaped three Dallas health insurance exchange “navigators” as they appear to advise a consumer to lie about his income and smoking to get a better deal on subsidized health coverage.

James O’Keefe, known nationally for hidden-camera videos targeting the community organizing group ACORN, said Tuesday that his Texas video is the first of several to be released in coming weeks that expose abuses under the Affordable Care Act.

“This investigation shows just how vulnerable Obamacare is to fraud,” he said in a statement.

O’Keefe’s video debuted late Monday on Fox News and the conservative National Review Online, setting off Republican cries of outrage.

Officials with the National Urban League, whose Dallas affiliate hired the navigators, had no immediate comment.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., called for an immediate halt to the navigator program. It hires and trains people to help others sign up for insurance in the new state health coverage marketplaces.

“We’re seeing reports that navigators are encouraging the people they are supposed to help to lie,” Cornyn said. “This behavior is unacceptable, and is yet another broken piece of a deeply flawed system.”

In August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded $67 million in navigator grants to 105 organizations in states such as Texas that are not running their own health insurance exchanges.

The three navigators featured in O’Keefe’s video advise a young man who poses as a university student. He says he has a $15,000 a year job and unreported income from odd jobs. They tell him not to report the outside income on his health insurance application, if he has not disclosed it on his income taxes. They also urge him not to divulge that he occasionally smokes.

“You lie because your premiums will be higher,” one says.

The Urban League of Greater Dallas and North Central Texas apparently hired the three. The video identifies them as working at the group’s office in Oak Cliff.

The league received less than 4 percent of the $10.9 million in navigator grants distributed in Texas and has hired only a small fraction of the scores of navigators trained in the state.

Dr. Beverly Mitchell-Brooks, the local affiliate’s chief executive, did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

O’Keefe has been criticized, even by some conservatives, for selectively editing video. A few years ago, he orchestrated a group to pose as telephone repairmen. They were arrested after they entered an office of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. An O’Keefe effort in 2011 toppled the president of National Public Radio. However, conservative columnist Michael Gerson called it a hit piece, saying O’Keefe “manufactured an elaborate, alluring lie.”

O’Keefe spokeswoman Jennifer Ridgley, though, defended his past undercover techniques as no different from what network news magazines do routinely.

“While some may not agree on the topic of investigation, the methods are the same,” Ridgley said.

She noted that O’Keefe and his Project Veritas routinely post their unedited video on a website.

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